“Your jacket,” Quinn said.

  “What about my jacket?”

  “Take it off.”

  “Go to hell. I’m not tak­ing it off.”

  Quinn placed the gun against the man’s shoulder. “I hope you’ve en­joyed the abil­ity to raise your arm up and down, be­cause it’ll be a while be­fore you can do it again.”

  He had every in­ten­tion of pulling the trig­ger. St. Amand must have sensed this, be­cause he said, “Fine, fine. I’ll take it off.”

  The man re­moved his jacket.

  Quinn nod­ded at the SUV. “Toss it in­side.”

  St. Amand looked even less ex­cited about do­ing this.

  Quinn nudged his shoulder with the weapon. “Now.”

  St. Amand tossed it in on top of the dead man.

  “Thanks,” Quinn said. In the dis­tance, he heard the first of what would soon be many sirens.

  “Nate, hurry up. We’ve got to go.”

  “Jar’s belt is stuck.”

  Quinn pulled out his pock­etknife and thrust it in­side. “Here. Cut her out.”

  A vehicle braked to a screech­ing stop on the other side of the SUV.

  Quinn looked over the top again.

  The new vehicle was a clone of the one Quinn and the oth­ers had been rid­ing in, and was stopped next to the BMW. As the doors flew open and sev­eral men climbed out, a voice from the side­walk yelled a warn­ing in Bul­garian. The men from the SUV raced around their vehicle, out of sight.

  “Nate, time’s up. Re­in­force­ments are here!”

  “I got her down. I just need you to help me get her out.”

  Keep­ing his gun trained on St. Amand, Quinn did what he could to guide the un­con­scious Jar out the win­dow. As soon as she cleared the frame, Nate hustled through.

  “Can you carry her?” Quinn asked. “Or should I?”

  Nate, his face bloody from a cut on his cheek, said, “I’ll do it. You lead the way.”

  Quinn grabbed their pris­oner by the arm. “All right. On your feet but keep low. Time to show me how much you want to stay alive.”

  *

  As Drake re­gained con­scious­ness, he could hear someone talk­ing, and real­ized after a mo­ment the man was speak­ing in Eng­lish on the phone. But try as Drake might, the fog and pain rat­tling through his head made it im­possible to un­der­stand any­thing.

  The next thing he knew, he tumbled through the air and was banging off walls. After he fi­nally came to rest, he lay there for a mo­ment, stunned, be­fore he opened his eyes.

  He was in a vehicle. More spe­cific­ally, ly­ing on the ceil­ing of a vehicle, the back­seat hanging above his head.

  Voices again, and move­ment off to his side. He turned his head, and saw sev­eral oth­ers ly­ing on the ceil­ing, too. The dim night made it dif­fi­cult to know ex­actly how many. He tried to call to them, but dis­covered there was some­thing in his mouth.

  He reached up to pull it out, or tried, any­way. His hands had been tied be­hind his back. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose, try­ing to build up strength. When he opened his lids again, all but one of the oth­ers were gone. The one that re­mained ap­peared to be un­con­scious.

  The next minute or so was a blur of scattered gun­shots, shouts, more move­ment up­front, and the sound of run­ning.

  In the sub­sequent quiet, Drake’s head cleared a little. He now re­membered be­ing jumped, and real­ized he must be in the or­gan­iz­a­tion’s SUV.

  “Any­one in­side, not to move.” Like the phone con­ver­sa­tion be­fore, these words were in Eng­lish, but this time clearly said by a non-nat­ive speaker.

  A shadow passed the win­dow near Drake’s head, and he heard the crunch of glass un­der a shoe.

  A beat later, a flash­light beam lit up the pave­ment out­side a broken win­dow closer to the front. When it swung in­side, it il­lu­min­ated the un­con­scious man, and who­ever was hold­ing the light cursed. Drake saw he’d been wrong. The other guy in the vehicle wasn’t un­con­scious. He was dead.

  When the beam landed on Drake’s face, he squin­ted and turned his face away. He tried to talk but was again sty­mied by whatever was in his mouth.

  “Mr. Drake?”

  A hand reached in and pulled the of­fend­ing ob­ject from Drake’s mouth. Drake coughed sev­eral times, then croaked, “Get that damn light out of my eyes!”

  *

  Stay­ing low, Quinn guided the oth­ers on a path that al­lowed the wreck­age to mask their es­cape. As they neared the in­ter­sec­tion, Quinn checked over his shoulder, and saw the re­in­force­ments were now circ­ling around the up­side down SUV.

  Giv­ing up all at­tempts of stay­ing hid­den, he pulled St. Amand, shouted, “Go! Go!” and ran.

  He took them left at the corner, and scanned ahead for a hid­ing place. There were no good ones. The best they could do for now was to in­crease the dis­tance between them and St. Amand’s men, so that when a good hid­ing place did turn up, they could get into it without be­ing seen. The prob­lem was, St. Amand ap­peared to have real­ized this, too, and def­in­itely wasn’t put­ting his heart into run­ning.

  “In case you for­got,” Quinn said, “the only way I’m leav­ing you be­hind is as a corpse. And I’m very close to leav­ing you be­hind.”

  Be­fore St. Amand could re­spond, flash­ing red lights began boun­cing off the build­ings on the next street up.

  Quinn pulled St. Amand between two parked cars and onto the side­walk, Nate, car­ry­ing Jar, right be­hind them.

  “Down,” Quinn said, a split second be­fore the first of three po­lice cars turned onto their street.

  Crouch­ing, they used the parked cars as a shield and con­tin­ued for­ward as the cars rushed by in the other dir­ec­tion. The mo­ment the last car passed, Quinn jerked St. Amand up and star­ted to run again.

  As they took a right at the in­ter­sec­tion the cops had come from, Quinn once again checked be­hind them. The first of St. Amand’s men was a good twenty meters back, which was al­most ex­actly the dis­tance to the next in­ter­sec­tion. If they could get around it be­fore the oth­ers showed up, they would have a chance of shak­ing their pur­suers.

  Passing through a dark spot between street­lamps, Quinn al­most missed the mis­aligned sec­tions of side­walk. He was forced to stut­ter-step to keep from trip­ping.

  “Watch out,” he called back to Nate.

  The warn­ing came too late. Nate caught the tip of his toe on the ob­struc­tion, and down he and Jar went, crash­ing onto the side­walk.

  Quinn clamped down on St. Amand, in­tend­ing to go back. But Nate jumped to his feet and said, “Keep go­ing. We’ll catch up.”

  Quinn didn’t want to leave his friends be­hind, but there was noth­ing he could do to help that Nate wasn’t already do­ing.

  He pushed St. Amand for­ward. “Run!”

  *

  Nate was pretty sure he’d cracked a rib dur­ing the car crash, but he’d had worse in­jur­ies in tougher situ­ations. The good thing was that Jar was light as a feather, so he was able to carry her without too much trouble.

  When Quinn said, “Watch out,” Nate had looked at the ground ahead. Maybe if Jar wasn’t par­tially ly­ing across his chest, block­ing his view, he would have seen the de­vi­ation in the side­walk. But he was fly­ing for­ward be­fore he real­ized what had happened.

  He had enough aware­ness to twist side­ways right be­fore he landed so that he was the one who hit the con­crete and not Jar. In­stead, her ribs bounced off his head be­fore she rolled off him, stop­ping a meter away.

  Ig­nor­ing the new pain in his shoulder and that of the rib in­jured in the car crash, he scrambled to his feet and leaned down to grab Jar. When he real­ized Quinn had stopped, he told him to keep go­ing and then at­temp­ted to pull Jar straight up.

  But his shoulder screamed that it was not down with that plan.

  He tried again, only this time he man­euvered her into a sit­ting po­s­i­tion, and tucked his good shoulder into the bend of her waist be­fore he lif­ted her. This method was not without pain, either, but his body didn’t com­pletely re­ject the idea, and in short or­der he was on the move again.

  Run­ning brought its own ver­sion of tor­ture, as each shift of Jar’s weight sent a blast of fire down his arm and across his chest.

  Ahead, Quinn and St. Amand reached the in­ter­sec­tion and turned right, dis­ap­pear­ing from sight. Ig­nor­ing his pain as best he could, Nate tried to in­crease his speed, but the fall had also zapped much of his strength. In­stead of the gap between him and Quinn clos­ing, it was the one between him and St. Amand’s men that was de­creas­ing.

  As he neared the corner, he knew his and Jar’s best chance of es­cape lay not with fol­low­ing his part­ner but in go­ing in a dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tion and split­ting their pur­suers. Nate still might not be able to out­run them, but he would have a much bet­ter chance of tak­ing two of them out than he would with all four. When he reached the in­ter­sec­tion, he sprin­ted left.

  Nate could hear his pur­suers shout­ing at one an­other as they ap­proached the turn. A few seconds later, he glanced over his shoulder and saw his gam­bit had paid off. In fact, he’d hit the double bo­nus. The pair com­ing after him did not in­clude the speedy guy who’d been lead­ing them.

  About thirty meters ahead, a chest-high wall stuck out from a build­ing, all the way to the edge of the side­walk.

  Per­fect.

  He pushed him­self as hard as he could, then swung around the wall and de­pos­ited Jar on the ground. Mov­ing to the front edge, he pulled his gun out and aimed at the first of the two men. He took a breath, let it half out, and pulled the trig­ger.

  The gun didn’t fire.

  “Crap!”

  He checked the cham­ber but couldn’t see any ob­vi­ous prob­lems, so he aimed and pulled the trig­ger again. Still noth­ing.

  Some­thing must have happened to it in the crash.

  He glanced at Jar. Even without his messed up shoulder, there was no way he could pick her up and get mov­ing again be­fore the oth­ers reached them.

  He flipped the pis­tol around, hold­ing it like a ham­mer, and hunkered down against the wall. What little plan he had in­volved jump­ing the first one who came around the wall.

  But the men had ap­par­ently no­ticed his prob­lem with the gun, and in­stead of com­ing right at the wall, they took a wide arc out into the street, so that when Nate fi­nally saw them, they were too far away for him to do much of any­thing. They were more than close enough, how­ever, to use the guns they were aim­ing at him.

  One of them said some­thing in Bul­garian. The other trans­lated in heav­ily ac­cen­ted Eng­lish. “Drop it.”

  The worst death is one that can be avoided. An­other Quinn les­son, in the live-to-fight-an­other-day vein.

  Nate tossed the pis­tol on the ground and raised his hands.

  The men cau­tiously walked to­ward him. One pulled a ra­dio off his belt and said some­thing into it. When the reply came, Nate re­cog­nized the name St. Amand but noth­ing else. The man spoke into the device again, then an­other reply, this one short.

  The Eng­lish speaker mo­tioned at Jar. “Dead?”

  “No. But she needs a doc­tor.”

  The man chuffed. “Turn around and hands be­hind back.”

  Nate did as dir­ec­ted.

  *

  The block Quinn and St. Amand veered onto was a short one, and Quinn was sure they could make the next turn without be­ing seen. The only ques­tion was whether Nate and Jar would reach them in time.

  He led St. Amand across the road to the corner and looked back to check on his friends.

  For half a second, he thought they hadn’t reached the road yet, but then he spot­ted them go­ing the other way. The only ex­plan­a­tion was that Nate was giv­ing them both a bet­ter chance to get away.

  Quinn yanked St. Amand around the corner.

  “I…can­not…run…forever,” St. Amand said between breaths.

  “Shut up and run.”

  A block away was an in­ter­sec­tion filled with cars go­ing in both dir­ec­tions. A busy road, prob­ably filled with ped­es­tri­ans, too. In nor­mal cir­cum­stances, Quinn would have wel­comed the op­por­tun­ity to lose his pur­suers. But in this case, it would also provide St. Amand the chance to make a scene and get away.

  It was time to find some­place to hide.

  Sev­eral of the nearby build­ings had por­ti­cos along the ground floor. A few were lit, but the ma­jor­ity were in shad­ows. Quinn picked one and guided St. Amand to it, hust­ling him down to the very end of the por­tico where the shad­ows were deep­est.

  “On the ground,” he ordered. “If you even breathe loudly, I’ll kill you.”

  “Then you will be the dead man.”

  “Don’t look so smug. You’re not even close to the first per­son who’s said that to me. Now get down and shut up.” He shoved his gun on St. Amand’s shoulder un­til the man com­plied.

  Steps on the street now, run­ning, but not as fast as be­fore. Quinn sensed they were un­sure if they’d gone the right way.

  A voice crackled over a ra­dio. Bul­garian again. Quinn picked out the words found and man and wo­man.

  The lead chaser raised a ra­dio to his lips and asked if St. Amand was one of them.

  “No.”

  The chaser spoke again, some­thing about a vehicle, then clipped his ra­dio on his belt and con­tin­ued down the road with his col­league. Once they had moved out of earshot, Quinn re­laxed a little.

  St. Amand smirked. “Your friends are dead.”

  Quinn replied, “If they are, then so are you.”

  He pulled out his phone to text Or­lando for as­sist­ance, but the screen was filled with cracks and re­mained black.

  He cursed.

  Nate and Jar would be in real trouble if someone didn’t help them soon. Without a way to quickly get ahold of Or­lando, the only someone was him.

  “On your feet,” he said.

  He hauled St. Amand to the build­ing’s en­trance. It was locked, but the latch was eas­ily re­leased with a card from St. Amand’s wal­let.

  Quinn shoved the man in­side.

  The ground floor of the build­ing ap­peared to be di­vided into over a dozen sep­ar­ate of­fice suites hous­ing small busi­nesses. He guided St. Amand down the hall­way. Most of the doors had name­plates be­side them, but two had only mounts and no ac­tual plates.

  Quinn picked the lock of the one farthest from the build­ing en­trance. As he had hoped, the of­fice was not be­ing ren­ted. From the mess, it looked to be in the middle of a re­fur­bish­ment, but he was pos­it­ive no one would show up be­fore morn­ing.

  Per­fect.

  He ushered St. Amand into an in­terior room that didn’t share walls with any of the other ren­ted spaces.

  “What is this?” St. Amand asked. “We wait here un­til your other friends pick us up?”

  “Not we,” Quinn said.

  He whipped his arm around St. Amand’s neck and squeezed hard. A part of him wanted to keep go­ing after the guy lost con­scious­ness, but that wasn’t the job. Quinn lowered St. Amand to the floor, then hunted for some­thing to tie him up with.

  Within all the junk ly­ing around, he found sev­eral pieces of wire. He tied up St. Amand’s wrists and ankles, and con­nec­ted them be­hind the as­shole’s back. He then tied a piece of old cur­tain between St. Amand’s teeth as a muzzle. On the floor of one of the lar­ger rooms, he found a piece of pa­per and a broken pen­cil and used them to write a note. He stuck it in St. Amand’s front pocket, leav­ing the pa­per hanging out a little so it wouldn’t be missed.

  Lastly, he put his phone in the same pocket as the note. Even though the screen wasn’t work­ing, Or­lando should still be able to track its loc­a­tion. If not…well, St. Amand had bet­ter hope noth­ing happened to Quinn.

  He headed out­side and ran to­ward the in­ter­sec­tion where he’d seen Nate and Jar go­ing in the op­pos­ite dir­ec­tion.

  When he reached it, he juked to his right, into the shad­ows of the build­ing on the corner. The SUV the re­in­force­ments had ar­rived in was sit­ting on the left side of the road, three quar­ters of a block bey­ond the in­ter­sec­tion, fa­cing the wrong dir­ec­tion. All its doors were open, and lit up by its head­lights was Nate be­ing roughly led to the vehicle.

  Quinn clenched a fist. Per­haps if he moved in close enough, he could take out St. Amand’s men without ac­ci­dent­ally hit­ting—

  The crackle of a ra­dio, com­ing from some­where be­hind him and mov­ing closer.

  Seconds later a man moved through the dark­ness down the road.

  Quinn searched for a second per­son, but the walker ap­peared to be alone.

  A garbled voice on the ra­dio, fol­lowed by the shadow rais­ing some­thing to his fea­ture­less head and say­ing some­thing Quinn couldn’t make out.

  Quinn crept over to the side­walk side of the parked cars, and found a gap between the vehicles wide enough to pass through without rub­bing against either one. When he reached the street-side open­ing, he paused and listened as the shadow ap­proached and then passed his po­s­i­tion.

  Si­lently, Quinn moved into the street be­hind the man, match­ing him step for step. The mo­ment he was close enough, he threw a choke hold around the guy’s neck.

  St. Amand’s man grabbed at Quinn’s arm, try­ing to pull it loose, while twist­ing his body back and forth.

  Quinn pressed his gun into the small of the man’s back. “I pull the trig­ger and you never walk again.”

  The guy ap­par­ently knew enough Eng­lish to un­der­stand the threat. He stopped twist­ing, and while his hand re­mained on Quinn’s arm, it wasn’t try­ing to dis­lodge it any­more.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36